Amboy Quick Visit - Revisited

Finally, I may have figured out how to make a video upload properly.

This short sequence had Monya laughing so hard she couldn't hear what the boys were saying. I had to play it over four times.

Livestronge Challenge

Today Lief rode 116 miles to support the Livestrong Challenge. So yesterday BeeBoo and Arthur helped me paint a sign to encourage Lief. Arthur is polishing up his signature here: a set of traced hand prints.

This afternoon, Monya and I waited, holding the sign at a "power stop" in Renton.

Lief arrived an hour later, after riding about 100 miles, fighting off leg cramps, and climbing two of the "stoopidest" hills in the area. After this photo, he endured the downpour of a thunderstorm. Notice the tributes to cancer victims he posted on his windshield.

Quick Visit in Amboy

Yesterday I spent a whirlwind day in Amboy. I arrived in time for breakfast, played a round of tennis, helped paint a sign for Lief, helped set up a huge swimming pool, and filmed some amazing trampoline techniques. I slept in the car, then drove home at O-dark forty-five. I needed to be home by 0700 so I could see Lief in Newcastle, riding 100 miles for the "Livestrong Challenge" bike ride.

So check out the cat tail sticking out from under the flattened toy tent.

I have an excellent trampoline video, but that will have to wait until I can edit the original into a reasonable upload size. (The cat tail video took 30 minutes to upload.)

In Memory of Pompi

Pompette Kartoffelpuffer, aka "Pompi" aka "doodle" was an unsociable cat. You were only allowed to touch her on the head, neck or back. Never, ever touch her tail. She would scratch or bite anybody who violated that rule, and especially knew when she could get away with scratching children. Children were fascinated with her, probably because she was so fluffy and soft looking.

She preferred to stay outside all the time, except when it was freezing or heavy rain outside. She would come inside only to eat, then meow a request to open the door so she could go back outside.

She was always finicky about eating, and was always skinny under all that fur. When I gave her a flea bath once each summer, I was always surprised at how thin she was.

Over the last two weeks she was more finicky than ever. She seemed to be thirsty all the time, and only wanted to sleep in one of her hiding places in the yard. I found her several times, picked her up gently and carried her to the water and food dishes. She would drink some water and then wobble off to another hiding place.

About four days ago she disappeared. I have searched all of her known hiding places to no avail. The last time I saw her I didn't understand how she had enough strength to wobble away like that, so I'm certain she died in her sleep in some secret hiding place. She was about 18 years old.

When I Am Grown and Can Have What I Please...

Last night I came home from work starving, and in desperate need of a bath. This has frequently been a problem for me since I like to soak in the bath for an hour or more, coordinating with dinner preparation is always difficult. But last night was different. Monya suggested that she bring my dinner into the bathroom and let me eat it whilst soaking in the tub.

It sounded gross to me, but I was hungry, so I acceded to the offer. She brought a plastic plate containing three sausage patties, three pancakes made with coconut milk and drenched in home-made maple syrup, and a plastic sippie-cup full of orange juice. I quickly discovered that the angle of the tub back-rest made it difficult to eat neatly. The hot syrup was thin and easily ran down my chin. But I noted consciously to myself that I was not wearing a silk tie, or even a clean white ironed shirt, so I just stuffed the food into my mouth and happily let the drips fall where they may. When I was done, I simply scooted down into the hot water and rinsed off.

That was better than breakfast in bed! Sorry, no pictures.

Hauling Lumber by Bicycle

Last weekend I bought two 12 foot long 2x6 boards, two 10 foot long 4x4, and one ten foot 2x4. I needed to haul them from the lumber store three blocks away, and just refused to start the car to run that short errand. Besides, I have an XtraCycle now.

So I loaded up the bike with plenty of rope, and the kayak wheels for a trailer, and this picture shows how I got the load home.

It was a successful trip, but I don't recommend hauling this much weight with a bike. The inertia in the load made starting from a stop very difficult. Balancing the bike at the initial slow speed was the problem, and the toe clips did not help.

Two Movies

BeeBoo had a great idea: we should make a movie featuring two of his stuffed animals. We cleared out a theater on the living room carpet, set up the "movie" camera on a tripod, then set the stuffed animals into motion.

I named the first movie Attack of the Tiger then BeeBoo said we should make a second movie and call it Revenge of the Horse.

We had fun making these movies, and hope you enjoy watching them.

Missing Teeth, Bookshelf, Birdhouses and Bunny

Last weekend we had a wonderful time visiting in Amboy. We discovered that Arthur had lost both of his front teeth.

We brought a new bookshelf for BeeBoo so he can store his huge collection of books.

We built two bird houses.

One for a Robin...

...and one for a Flicker

We were sad when it was time to go. The bunny came out to see us off.

Comet Lulin Incoming

Watch the pre-dawn skies whenever it's clear for the next two weeks. There is a new comet named Lulin currently inbound. It's orbit nearly matches the plane of the ecliptic, meaning it's aligned with Earth and the other planets, but it's traveling in the opposite direction.

The comet will be closest to Earth on February 24 and will be at opposition (opposite the Sun) on February 25. That should be while the moon is new, so the skies should be as dark as possible, and excellent for viewing a comet. During opposition, Lulin will be visible all night.

The comet's perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) is inside the orbit of Mars, but outside the orbit of Earth, so we will never be able to see a "fan" shaped tail. In fact, since the tail points away from the Sun, and the Earth in this case, and because the comet's orbit is aligned with the ecliptic, we will only see a thin tail extending from both sides of the comet. It's close approach to Earth in a dark sky is what should make it interesting.

For more detailed information, see the description at Sky and Telescope.

XtraCycle FreeRadical Bicycle

Last weekend Lief and Abby helped me assemble my new XtraCycle. It was a fun project, and a lesson in how complicated a simple bike can be. We had to use a Dremel cut-off wheel to cut the new cable housings to the correct length, but other than that we used only typical mechanic's tools.

As you can see in the photo, I got the wide-loader option, but now I'm wondering why. It adds so much width to the bicycle that I wonder if I'll fit between posts at the ends of bicycle trails, and between light poles, fire hydrants and street signs on sidewalks.

With the XtraCycle FreeRadical extension, I am one step closer to having a StokeMonkey electric assist motor.

No worries about putting this bike on a Metro bus either. The friendly people at RideYourBike.com have posted photos of Seattle area XtraCycle owners, including proof of how to load one on a bus bike rack. (Click on the advertisement for XtraCycles to see the photos.)

Bicycle Reflecting Sidewall Tires; Part 2

Yesterday I put my new reflecting rim on the rear of my bike. The reflecting white sidewall tire is still there, but it's hard to see in the glare of the rim.

Raccoon Visitors

Part of the reason I like snow is that it maintains a record of what happened in the night. A family of raccoons stopped by to see if we left any cat food out.

Igloo Rebuilt

Some bad boys smashed my igloo in the night, so I was unable to get any daylight photos of it. Luckily, a team of hard workers volunteered to help me rebuild it. The only requirement was that the new design would have enough room inside for two children to sit in there. You may have to look close to see Bruno because his grey whiskers are the only part of him that shows.

The second photo proves that Evan can crawl through the tiny doorway. He told me, "I'm only eight and I'm as tall as an eleven-year-old."

Notice also that Lillie is leaning on the igloo, showing the strength of the structure. She is heavier than she looks, weighing in at nearly 18,000 grams.

The final photo shows both Evan and Lillie inside the igloo, taken by pointing the camera through a tiny window in the back of the igloo. The window was a design requirement provided by Lillie. (Every playhouse needs a window. It doesn't matter that windows are not typically found in igloos.)

Igloo 2008

I just can't pass up an opportunity to build something in the snow. Here's my contribution for this year: a miniature igloo. It's sized appropriately for fairies and elves, or maybe a cat or dog. Monya wanted me to cover up the opening so a drunk/homeless person doesn't take up residence, but I insisted that the doorway is too small for a drunk/homeless person. Lief and James might be able to identify one of my construction implements by noticing the shape and size of the opening.

Blizzard of 2008

Last night I ventured out into the blizzard to experience the weather, and to get some pictures of the Christmas lights in the park. I dressed in the same way I did when I went out in the blizzard in Midland, South Dakota in 1969. I wore three pair of pants, a sweatshirt, a sweater, two coats, and two layers of hats. It was overkill. I ended up over-heating, because the wind/temperature combination was similar to last week when Lief and I rode our bicycles to work, wearing only one sweatshirt under my rain/wind shell. The temperature then was -7.7C with average wind speed of 15 mph. Last night the temperature was only -7.4 and the wind was blowing at about 20 mph. In contrast, the Midland blizzard temperature was -20F and the wind was 30mph or more. I lasted only five minutes before I had to retreat into Grandpa Noble's house.

This photo of the lights was taken at 1/3 second. I was braced for the photo, but the wind moved me around. The yellow lights on the ground were actually buried in the snowdrift. Blowing snow is not visible at this shutter speed.

This morning there were snow drifts all over the yard. We started with about two inches of snow, but the drifts piled it up to six inches or more in some places, and cleaned it off to bare ground in other places.

At about 2:00AM we got a light sprinkling of freezing rain that put a hard glaze on the surface. So the normally soft, fluffy snow is crunchy on the surface.

Bicycle Reflecting Sidewall Tires

Here's what my bike looks like in the dark. It has reflecting sidewall tires, along with reflector tape on my luggage container, and one reflector in the front spokes. Within a week I hope to have my new reflecting rim on the rear, and can use this photo for comparison.

In addition to this, I have reflector tape on my boots, pants, jacket and gloves. I run two LED headlights; one with a powerful steady beam and the other pulsing, and I have two bright LED tail lights pulsing at different rates. These were turned off for this photo but wouldn't show in this direction anyway. I also have two flashing LED lights in my front spokes that are activated by motion.

All of this lighting is intended to make me more visible to motor vehicle traffic. I suspect the reason a cyclist was killed in Skyway last week was partly because he was not running enough lights in the early morning darkness.

Christmas Lights

This year we put our lights up earlier than ever before. Our neighbors missed their "Friday after Thanksgiving" date so we even beat them to it. Here's what four strings of lights look like on our little Maple tree. It's a good thing we didn't try to decorate the Oak tree. Our lights would not have made it once around that tree.

Arthur on the Monkey Bars

Last weekend Arthur was here to visit. We went for a walk to see what we could find. He found 26 cents, some rubber bands, and some monkey bars. Here's a movie showing what he can do with monkey bars.

Common Snipe

This morning Monya spotted a Common Snipe in our back yard. It was the first time either of us had seen one, and it stayed for several hours, walking around on the ground, and stopping to rest in the sunshine. We worried about Pompi being out there, but we think she was snoozing in the sunshine too, and she left the snipe alone.

Can You See My Finger?

The other day I arrived home from work, put my bike in the garage, then closed the big door. I turned to head for the house when I heard a squeaky voice from next door?

"Hi Jim!"

I looked in the direction of the voice and found only the six foot tall, wooden fence. It was obviously our five-year-old neighbor, Lilly, calling through the fence from her back yard.

"Hi Lilly," I replied. "I can hear you but I can't see you."

I turned to go, but the voice stopped me again.

"Can you see my finger?"

What? I carefully searched the plain white fence, then finally spotted the tiny finger, wriggling like a caterpillar, protruding from an impossibly small knothole.

"Yes Lilly, I can see you now."